Editor's corner.

• Position: Editorial

The chorus of complaints about the problems of aging aircraft and obsolete avionics in the U.S. military inventories has grown during the past several years, especially within the Navy and the Air Force. Now, that the nation is at war, the issue is drawing fresh attention.

Both the Navy and the Air Force are struggling to come up with plans to modernize aircraft fleets that often are older than the operators who fly and maintain them.

Officials from the Navy's office of aging aircraft, in Patuxent River, Md., discuss various initiatives that they are pursuing. For details, see our special report on page 30.

Within the Air Force, the granddaddy of all military aircraft is the B-52 Straro-fortress bomber. Many of these gigantic bombers are more than 40 years old. There is a mounting debate among Air Force leaders, independent experts and retired officers about what the service should do to modernize the bomber fleet. As could be expected in such a big-ticket program, there are many opinions and little consensus. The story on the bomber debate begins on page 28.

The Air Force, meanwhile, also is working on plans to deploy more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the war zone in Afghanistan, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The workhorse UAV so far has been the Predator. A few have been lost in combat, but that has not deterred the Air Force's desire to use these systems to collect intelligence...